


Homecoming

by Shanghaijim



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Ableist Language, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Antisemitism, Class Differences, Disability, F/M, Gen, Homophobia, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Racism, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:36:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24930130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shanghaijim/pseuds/Shanghaijim
Summary: Four pairs of friends try to find their way after the war. Originally published in 2005 on LiveJournal. Updated 2020.
Relationships: Joseph Liebgott/David Kenyon Webster, Lewis Nixon/Richard Winters
Comments: 3
Kudos: 24





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This novella is a work of fiction, based on a pre-existing work, based on true events. Certain real-life persons appear in this novella who were not previously depicted in the work from which it derives. While certain biographical facts about them are real, their depictions here are entirely fictional and used for dramatic effect. No real resemblance is intended or should be assumed.

The young soldier stepped off the train at 30th Street Station and took a deep breath. His lungs filled with the odor of diesel and grease and river tide.

A big grin creased his face.

“Philly,” said Babe, gazing across the Schuylkill to the city beyond. “God damn. I’m home!”

David put down his journal to watch the morning sun illuminate the fog over the bay, but his companion was snoring.

“Joe,” he said, and punched him. He had been looking forward to this moment since their train left Chicago. Fifty indistinct hours later and Joe was still asleep for the end of the journey.

He leaned over his friend. “Lieb,” he whispered loudly, “wake up.”

From under a Denver newspaper came one jaundiced eye. “Do that again and I’ll throw you overboard.”

“Good, you’re awake.” David beamed. “Rise and shine, we’re almost there.”

Joe sat up. He stretched and looked around the ferry. “Jesus Christ. It’s seven in the morning.” They were passing under the bridge. “You know I seen this before.”

“Well I haven’t,” David said. “Not from this angle anyway.” He admired the four gray towers as they rose over them, the monumental concrete anchorage, the shadows of the road and rail decks, the cables glistening in the sunrise.

The ferry dove into a fog bank. For a moment the world turned a dazzling misty gold.

And out they came, on the far side, the city’s hills rising above its mantle of fog.

“San Francisco,” David said, squeezing Joe’s shoulder. “Welcome home.”

“Yeah,” Joe said. His face was expressionless. “Home.”

Don stared at his face in the mirror and hated what he saw. “Stupid, stupid,” he muttered to himself. He tried to wash it again. Finally he gave up, dried his face, threw the towel in a corner, and walked to the window to get some air. After all he’d seen and done, to be nervous about this.

He opened the window. The cool breath of western New York, with a hint of Buffalo’s factories and the noisomeness of the Erie Canal, filled his nostrils.

“Jesus,” he said, or prayed; he wasn’t sure. He reached into his pocket and took out a broken rosary, just the crucifix and pendant with a scrap of the first and last decades.

“I’m an idiot, aren’t I?” he asked, to no one visible. A smile came to his lips, and it settled over his face like the subtraction of years. “Wiseass,” he said, again to no one visible. “She’s your girlfriend.”

Then Don sighed. “I hope I’m doing the right thing,” he said. He looked at the rosary again, and clutched it in his fist, gently knocked it against his forehead. “Stupid,” he repeated to himself, eyes closed. “Stupid. Stupid.”

Shafts of light slanted brazenly down from the great glass vaults of Penn Station, shining upon the dark-haired young man in the tailored suit waiting on the concourse for the train from Philadelphia. His family no longer all that famous, he drew no stares and turned no heads, except that of a young woman, traveling alone, who glanced at him as she passed his way. He noticed her, smiled, smoked on his cigarette. She would have smiled too, but she was moving too fast.

It was for the best. He was waiting for someone, and after all, there was a wedding ring on his finger.

The public address system announced the arrival of the _Gotham Limited._ “Chicago. Pittsburgh. Harrisburg. Philadelphia.” And Lancaster somewhere in between. He stubbed his cigarette out. He took a discreet nip from a flask concealed in a jacket pocket. He waited for the passengers to ascend.

“Dick,” he called. “Dick, over here.”

From the walkway appeared a young man in the dress greens of an Army officer, too young it seemed for the rank proclaimed by the oak leaves on his collar and cap. Women and men gazed at him in open admiration. But he had eyes only for the dark-haired rascal who had come to meet him.

They embraced. “Lew,” said Dick. “You look good.”

“I’m a mess,” Lew replied. He saw his friend’s look of concern, and smiled sadly. “Ah, don’t listen to me,” he said. “Come on. You can leave your stuff at the club. Dad wants to have dinner with you at the house in Jersey.”

“In Jersey?”

“I know. Last minute folderol. At least we still have the weekend here.” They passed from the concourse to the luminous immensity of the grand waiting room.

Dick looked around, then said, “At least I got to see this again.”

“Hell, after this weekend, you’ll be a regular.” But Lew sounded uncertain, and Dick noticed.


	2. Chapter 2

_Philadelphia_

Babe got off at 2nd Street and started walking south towards the neighborhood. Everything seemed the same—the tall, narrow houses and tenements, the shopfronts with their wares, be-awninged in the chill, the crackle of rubbish in the gutters as some gangster’s car drove by, windows rolled up and invisible—but at the same time, he thought something was different. It was quieter. No, emptier. That was it. South Philly growing up was full of boys and young men, hanging around on the corners, throwing craps games, getting into fights, posing for the ladies, idling away the time. His friends, his enemies, the gangs and the fellas. Those boys and young men were gone. They simply weren’t here.

 _What are you thinking_. Babe shook off the malaise that had settled on him. _It’s not like you’re the only guy left in the neighborhood. You just got home early is all. That’s it. Hey, you got the run of the place now. Super-duper paratrooper_.

The phrase rattled in his head for a bit. He almost stopped walking. A slim, baby-faced soldier in his dress greens and a nice winter coat, home from the war, standing in a sparsely populated city street near Marker’s Candy Shop staring into thin air. Again he made himself snap out of it. Super-duper paratrooper. He wasn’t the one who made that up.

 _Maybe you should look him up, Babe_ , he thought to himself.

He shook his head.No.Too early, too soon. Who knew if he was back anyway? It took a long time to heal from—

_—goddammit, Edward, snap out of it._

He heard footsteps coming down swiftly behind him. Every muscle tensed. He dropped his bag and spun around, ready to attack.

“Babe? Babe!”

Babe found himself smothered in a hard embrace.

“Uncle Charlie?” he said, surprised.

His mother’s brother it was. “Edward! Our little Babe home at last!” cried his uncle. “At last—what am I saying? You’re the first kid back. Jesus, Mary and—you’re stiff as a board!”

Babe realized he was still poised to attack. He forced himself to relax. This was no enemy. This was Uncle Charlie, the bookmaker, with the Tootsie Rolls in his pocket and the piggyback rides on Easter. He was safe. He was home. This was the old neighborhood. He knew the score here.

“Uncle Charlie!” Babe said again, louder now, making himself grin. “Jesus, it’s good to see you. Where is everybody?”

“Your brothers and your dad’s up in Sal’s! You want us go meet ‘em?”

“What, before Ma?”

“Ah, your mother knows what’s what to you. Go see your brothers. It’s closer and the rheumatism’s getting to me hip.”

Babe looked down. His uncle was a hale man in his fifties, hard working, prone to blarney. “At least you still got both your legs,” he muttered.

“What was that, now?”

“Nothing. Nothing, Uncle Charlie. Yeah, let’s go to Sal’s. See Dad and them bums. Yeah.”He bent to pick up his barracks bag, but his uncle wouldn’t hear of it.

“Lemme get that for you, war hero!”

_Look at me! Look at me! Stop moving! Stop moving! We’ll come back for you! We’ll come back, I promise! Look at me!_

“Ah, go on with ya, okay, Uncle Charlie? I got it.”He shouldered his bag. His smile was pasted on. “Let’s get that drink. I’m sure thirsty enough for it, come to think.” The streets were so empty. No other young men around.“Hey, I got a watch for ya.”

_San Francisco_

“Jesus will you hurry up, Web?” Joe said for the umpteenth time. “I’m starving.”

“You’re always starving,” David muttered under his breath. Loudly he said, “Explain to me again why I’m carrying both of our bags?”

“You like it,” was the blithe reply. “Not my fault you decided to bring that steamer trunk.”

David put both his suitcase and Joe’s army duffel down on the sidewalk. “Well, unlike some people, I care about how I pack my clothes.”

“Blah, blah, blah …”

He always knew how to annoy him. “I’m not walking any further until you come and take one of these,” David announced.

For a moment it looked like Joe would call his bluff, and walk on without him.

At the last possible instant he turned around and ambled back to the corner where David had planted himself.

“Seriously?” he said.

David folded his arms. “Yes.”

“The hotel’s right there.” Joe pointed.

“I know where the hotel is,” said David irritably. “I just don’t see why we’re walking. We could have taken that trolley.”

“They’re called streetcars.”

“Or a cable car—”

“Well I wanted to walk okay? Jesus.”

David looked at him disgusted. “Why are you so piqued? Aren’t you happy to be home?”

“Jesus, what is it with you?” exclaimed Joe. He counted off from his thumb. “One, I grew up in Oakland, and B, we’re headed for the fucking St. Francis. Where you wanted to stay.”

“I just figured it would be more comfortable.”

“Comfortable for you maybe.”

David gave up. “Fine. Where do you want to go? Oakland? At least that’s downhill.” He got up and turned, his suitcase bumping on the sidewalk.

“Wait.” A hand grasped his wrist, hot and dry. David stared at it.

Joe let go. He grasped the suitcase handle instead. “I’ll take the bags.”

David felt ashamed. “No, it’s fine.”

“C’mon. Really. I’m sorry.”

David looked at his friend. It had taken a while to get used to Joe’s mercurial moods. He wondered if they were becoming more mercurial each passing day.

He let go. “I’ll carry yours.”

“Fine.” They exchanged burdens. Joe stood poised on the street corner, a fresh cigarette in his mouth and David’s suitcase tipped up in one hand. “Set?”

David nodded. “Hi ho silver.”

_New York_

Don had been in the States for several months. His family had been overjoyed to see him. They nearly knocked him over at the Portland station.

Later, though, his sister took him aside. “Donnie, what’s wrong?”

What was wrong. He looked past his sister, through the parlor into the hall where their father sat uncaring and unthought-of, and shuddered inside.

“Nothing,” he had said then. “Just, you know. Tired.”

He had seemed okay sure enough. He went back to school, continued writing to his old girlfriend from before the war, reconnected with old fraternity brothers. But not all of those brothers had come back. Some were in some field in France, or Italy, or North Africa; others were in sand and coral tombs on lonesome Pacific isles; or lost in the vastness of that ocean itself. Others had come back, but changed, as he had changed. He ran into an old friend, Tom Hayashi, whose family used to live near his, before Executive Order 9066. “Hey Tom.”

“Hey Don. How are you?”

“Fine. You look like hell.”

“Funny,” said Tom. “I was just about to tell you the same thing.” Ghosts clung to the survivors like spindrift.

At the fraternity house, he would wake up suddenly, thrashing, yelling, talking in his sleep. Someone would throw a pillow at him.

“Shut the hell up, hero!”

He went by himself into the Tillamook Forest, searching for the old cabin where he had spent his happiest days, a barechested boy playing jungle amid the blackberry bushes along the banks of the Nehalem. He found it, sure enough, still a blackened stain amid the dead firs and green saplings of the Burn.

After months of this his now ex-girlfriend took him to task. She was in New York, singing in a band; they had mutually broken up on a visit to Astoria.

“You can’t go on like this,” she scolded him. “You know you have to come here and settle it. Look at you, a war hero, scared of a small town.”

But it was scary, he couldn’t explain. It wasn’t just a small town. It was Skip’s town, where Skip grew up—and here would come Don, like an echo of the Western Union man who had no doubt become one of the most hated sights in Tonawanda.

Bernice was right, though. He was shying away from his responsibility. His life couldn’t go on if he didn’t see this through.

He had to go to Tonawanda.

He had to face his ghosts.

_New Jersey_

Lew drove. They crossed the Hudson into New Jersey and proceeded through Newark and the masses of suburbs already beginning to melt into each other, before emerging onto a two-lane highway out of the industrial townships into sleepy hamlets and autumn woods. Dick recognized names he’d passed on the train north.

“You could have just met me at Edison.”

“That’s Dad for you,” said Lew. “Besides, I was at the club anyway.” The Yale Club, luxurious and exclusive, restricted in every way and more. “Mom’s laid up at Doctors’ for a procedure. I’d rather you stayed with me at the club than down here.”

“Why not stay at your father’s house?”

“It’s his house. Not mine.” Lew changed lanes savagely. Dick grasped the edge of the door for a moment.

Lew noticed and grinned. “Like how I drive?”

“Swell,” Dick replied. “Remind me to take the keys next time we go out.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Lew said. “I manage just fine.”

Dick, not speaking, eyed the telltale bulge in Lew’s pocket left by his hip flask.

“So how is it?”

Dick looked up. “How is what?”

“Home,” Lew said. “Lancaster. Ephrata. Your family. Your girl. What’s her name. Demelza.”

“DeEtta.” Dick cocked his head, gazing down the long road. “DeEtta’s fine.”

Lew was eyeing him. “I don’t see an engagement ring,” he said.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“My pal dragged me to New Jersey for a job interview.”

A real smile flickered for a moment on Lew’s face before twisting into a sardonic grin. “That’s sweet of you.”

“I’m a man of my word, Nix.”

They passed Rutgers University. Lew left the highway and turned onto a quiet lane, which delved into a grove of alder and birch, their leaves aswirl. Dick stole a glance at his friend and saw the set of Lew’s jaw and the veins on the back of the hand on the steering wheel.

Ten more minutes and they came onto a green lawn bound by shadowy woods. Behind the lawn sprawled a rambling mansion of dark shingles and green gables with a plaque on a stone outside.

_FARRINGTON LAKE._

“Well here we are,” Lew said, shifting into first gear. “My father’s little hunting lodge. Be it never so humble.”


	3. Chapter 3

_Philadelphia_

“It was this place near our base, you know, in France and all,” Babe was saying. “Lulu’s. It was a very accommodating establishment, if you fellas know what I mean, and I think you do!”

His brothers had left, and his father had stayed just long enough to shake his hand, but Babe was still at Sal’s, holding court at the bar, surrounded by barflies of all ages, some of whom he knew, some he didn’t, and Sal himself behind the bar, listening to his stories about the war.

“Now Lulu’s wasn’t the only place in that town that a guy could go to for some company,” he said, leaning on the bar in his uniform, a thick foamy beer, his sixth, behind him. “There was this other place, but our company, Easy, that is, my outfit—elite rifle assault company, 2nd battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne,” he added with pride, “we heard that it wasn’t, you know, a place where the girls were all that happy.” Knowing nods from the men listening. They all knew places like that. “Now, problem was,” Babe went on, taking a swallow of his beer, “my pal Bill Guarnere—you guys know him?”

A few nods. “Yeah?” Babe said. “He come around here much, Sal? I haven’t seen him since he got shipped off.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Sal said. “Don’t think I know him all that well, but I knew his brother, you know, the one got killed in Italy?”

“Yeah,” Babe nodded. “That was right before D-Day. Bill told me. He said he went nuts in Normandy because of that. Tried to kill every German he saw.”

“Hey, where’d he lose his leg anyway?” a guy asked. “Heard it was in France somewheres.”

Babe reached for his beer and took two or three deep swallows before answering. “Bastogne,” he said, putting down his drink and wiping his lip. “He got hit in Bastogne. He was trying to get this buddy of ours who was hit out of the way of the shelling.” He took another drink, and found he’d finished his mug. “Sal, another one, huh?”

“Bastogne, huh?” said a man from a nearby table. He looked over at Babe. “Yeah, we were there. You were with the 101st, huh?”

“Yeah,” Babe said. He didn’t like the tone of this new guy. “What were you, 82nd?”

“Hell no,” the guy said with a laugh. “Third Army. We saved your Airborne asses, remember?”

The others laughed with him, all but Babe. Babe didn’t laugh. Instead he got off his stool. He picked up his refilled mug and took another long drink of it. “No,” he said.

The other vet looked back at him. “What?”

“No,” Babe said. “I don’t remember that.”

The cavalry man looked Babe up and down. “What’s your problem, Tiny?”

“Me?” said Babe. “I got no problem. I just like facts straight is all. And the straight facts are you and you Third Army tank jockeys didn’t rescue us because we fucking didn’t need rescuing.”

“Babe,” Sal said.

But the cavalry man shot to his feet. “You fucks were shitting in your holes freezing in your own piss when we got to you.”

Babe gazed at him. “Don’t be saying things like that, pal,” he said lowly, putting his mug down on the counter and stepping up to the other vet, who towered over him. “Not about me or my company.”

“You and your company were a bunch of pantywaist parachute loons,” said the other man, getting right into Babe’s face. “Sitting there in the pretty Christmas snow singing for Momma in a fucking winter wonderland. Shit. You ask me you Airborne pansies got no guts. All you fucking had to do was sit there—”

That was when Babe threw the man into a table and began punching his face so hard he broke two molars. By the time the man’s friends grabbed Babe and held him steady Sal had already called the police.

An hour later he was in the holding cell sucking the blood from the wound in his gums where a tooth had gotten loose. He looked down and cursed—he’d lost his rifle crosspin, and his nice dress shirt had bloodstains. Well, most of that was from the Third Army bastard, which made Babe smile grimly.

He heard footsteps and looked up at the cop. “C’mon, kid,” said the officer. “Pal of yours picking you up.”

“Pal?” Babe asked. He had expected his brothers, or worse his old man. Instead he heard a strange shuffling and stared as a lean, sharp-jawed young man appeared on two shoed feet.

“Always knew you’d end up in the slammer, ya dumb mick.”

Babe’s bruised and bloody face broke into a grin so wide it hurt.

_San Francisco_

“Ah,” said David, rubbing his hands. “That’s more like it.”

The lobby of the St. Francis Hotel was decorated with persian rugs, art deco chairs and upholstered benches, with globe chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling, a broad staircase leading to the upper lounge, and a towering steel clock looming over it all. “Yeah, neat,” Joe said. “I’ll be over there.” He went to one of the sitting areas and plopped down.

David sighed. He went to the registration desk. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, sir, may I help you?”

“I have a reservation. Webster.”

The clerk went down the book. “Ah, yes, here it is. One room, for two, through Sunday. Have you stayed with us before?”

“Yes, but as a child, I’m afraid.”

“Welcome back. Check-in is usually not till three, but I’ll see if we have a double available sooner.”

“A single will be fine,” said David.

The clerk discreetly glanced over at Joe, sprawled on a chair staring out at the pedestrians roaming Union Square. “A single, certainly, sir. Do you have bags?”

“Yes, with the doorman.”

The clerk made a note. “Absolutely, absolutely. We’ll have your room available in a jiffy. Until then please feel free to enjoy our lounge, our restaurant, or the Oak Room, our men’s club.”

“I’m familiar with it.” David signed the ledger as the clerk and the bellhop shared a glance. “Thank you.”

He returned to Joe. “Check-in won’t be till this afternoon. What do you want to do?”

“If we’d gone to a cheaper place we’d have gotten a room right away.”

“We don’t need to stay at a cheaper place. I can afford it.”

Joe twitched his legs nervously. “So what do we do now, wait around?”

David perched himself on the arm of Joe’s chair. “Why don’t we have an early lunch, and then drop by the cab company to get you back on the employment roll.”

Joe fiddled with his hands. “Why don’t you stay here and I’ll do that.”

“I want to come with you. Meet your bosses. The dispatchers and whatnot. Do you think you’ll still know some of the drivers?”

“No,” said Joe. “I dunno. Maybe. Fine. Let’s go.” He shot up off the seat.

David took a deep breath and followed.

_New Jersey_

Dick followed Lew into a gloomy anteroom floored in hardwood and walled in paneling carved with nautical themes. Anchor-shaped lamps lit the room dimly as a woman appeared to take his coat.

“Thank you,” Dick said.

Lew had tossed his keys and his sunglasses onto a sideboard beneath a portrait of a man clad in yachting togs. Dick noticed the eyes of the portrait followed them as they moved. Lew took off his own camelhair driving coat and without looking dropped it into the woman’s waiting arms. “Thanks Lil. Oh, this is my friend Dick. Dick, Lillian, the housekeeper.”

“Ma’am,” said Dick. The housekeeper nodded. She looked Asian. Japanese?

“Who’s here?” asked Lew.

“Miss Blanche is in the salon, sir.” She had an ordinary American accent. “Your father is at the factory but he said he will be on time for dinner.” She batted an eye. “Mrs. Mulcahey is also coming from Fair Haven. Sorry, Mrs. _Nixon_.”

Lew scowled. “What? Why? Nevermind. Fine, Lil, that’ll be all.” He dismissed her without a look.

“Yes Mr. Lewis.” The exchange left Dick perturbed.

Awkwardly he followed Lew into a salon facing a rear porch, with heavy-shaded lamps over overstuffed couches and a fully stocked bar. The portrait of a yacht hung over the crackling fireplace.

Sitting on an armchair holding an unopened book was a beautiful young woman, the spitting image of Lew, dark and pale, with the same set jaw and the same somber eyes. “Lulu!” she exclaimed, getting up. “I’ve been waiting ages! This place is a tomb!”

“Sorry, Baby, had to pick up the guest of honor. Dick, my kid sister Blanche. Blanche, Dick.”

Blanche held out a hand. “Charmed I’m sure.” Dick shook it. It seemed to amuse her. “Shall I make you a drink?” she offered.

“Dick doesn’t drink,” Lew said. He was pouring himself a whiskey. “What’re you having?”

“A G&T. Not a drinker!” Blanche added. “How the heck did you and Lulu ever get along?” She spared him further repartee, turning to her brother. “Did you hear _the blonde’s_ coming too?”

“Maybe we can get the road closed,” said Lew.

“I’ll phone the alderman.” Both siblings laughed. “Her here, God!” said Blanche. “And Mother laid up. I’ll bet you this month’s dress allowance she gets here in a fur.”

“The fox.”

“Ooh, the fox. With the teeth all _grr_!”

“And the claws!” Lew demonstrated.

“The claws!” They sniggered. Blanche wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry, we must sound awful,” she told Dick.

“We are,” said Lew. “He knows.”

“I guess you don’t like your stepmother,” Dick said.

Both Nixon siblings pretended to do spit-takes. “Jesus Christ, Dick, don’t ever call her that.”

“Our father had a longtime mistress, also named Blanche, who was much more of a mom to us than the blonde ever will be,” Blanche added. “You’ll meet her. She works at the factory now.”

“Don’t count the chickens,” said Lew. “Dad has to sign off first.”

Blanche drained her drink and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a holder from her pocketbook. “Got a light?” she asked Dick.

“Dick doesn’t smoke either, Baby.”

Blanche stared at them both. “And you found him in the army?” She laughed, and Dick found himself blushing.

_New York_

Don smiled and nodded as he accepted another beer. The waitress was pretty, he thought: nice brown hair and brown eyes, pert bosom, shapely behind.

“How’s the fish?” she asked.

Don looked at the half-eaten perch on his plate. “It’s good,” he said. “Just like home,” he lied.

“Where’s that?”

“Oregon. Astoria, Oregon.”

“Wow,” she said. “You’re a long way from home.”

Don allowed that he was.

“What brings you all the way out here? The Falls?”

Don tried to grin, though it felt like he grimaced instead. “Visiting,” he said.

“Family?”

“… a friend’s family.”

She smiled at him. “How come you’re sitting having dinner here and not at your friend’s?”

Don sighed. He had started on the way to the Mucks, but staring at the address on the envelope he had been overcome with indecision. He had found himself in a park along the river, sitting on a bench for almost half an hour, getting stiff and cold watching the Niagara surging by, before forcing himself to get up. He had seen the diner across the street and decided to get something to eat.

“It looked warm from outside,” he told the waitress with a smile.

She smiled too. She was quite pretty. Had she given him her name when she took his order? Helen?

“I bet it did,” she said. She met his eyes for a moment. It made him look away. God, when had it gotten hard to keep eye contact? He hadn’t used to be like this.

 _Because you’re an idiot_ , said the amused, sarcastic voice in his head.

“I’m the idiot?” Don replied.

“Hmm?” asked the waitress. Helene. That was it. _Hel-ayne._

“Nothing,” said Don.

“Okay,” she said. She glanced at his plate. “Well, finish your fish.”

She started to go. Don didn’t know if he was disappointed or relieved. But then she turned back.

“I know you’re thinking I’m a complete nose,” she began, “but, you know, small town and all that … who are you visiting?”

Don was still both disappointed and relieved. But he answered: “The Mucks.”

“The Mucks?” Her eyes brightened. “Oh, they come here every week! You a friend of Ruth’s?”

Don’s eyes faltered for a moment. “No, I …” He managed a smile again. “Skip’s.”

The change in her was instantaneous. Her eyes filled and her smile faded. “Skip?” For a moment Don thought she was going to cry. She started to sit down. He got up halfway, but she waved him off. “You knew Skip?” she said.

He nodded. “We were in the same platoon together. The same company.”

“You were in Easy Company?”

He gave a start. “You know about Easy?”

She smiled and shook her head. “Everybody knows about Easy,” she told him. “Everybody knows the Mucks. Everybody knew Skip. Everybody loved Skip. I went to school with him.” She laughed. “He was the skinniest guy on the football team, but he played so hard… everyone liked him. He was easy to like. He made everyone feel easy with themselves, you know? He made everyone laugh, you know?”

Don nodded. “I know.” The restaurant had gotten quiet. He realized the people in the tables behind him had stopped talking and had started listening. When he looked back at them, they nodded. They had the same expressions as the waitress.

“It was an awful January around here this year,” she was saying. “Almost worse than when we heard about the Niland boys. When we heard about Skip … you know, you start to hate those guys with the telegrams when you see them on the street … it was like God took all our smiles away.” She suddenly seemed to come to. “Oh, my goodness! I’m sorry! Just sitting down like that…”

“No,” Don struggled to say, “it’s fine…” But she was back on her feet and composing herself.

“It’s just …” She couldn’t speak for a moment. “We thought, you know—he’d come back. That’s all.” She shrugged, smiled. “You want that boxed up?” she asked.

The food. “Oh, no, thanks,” Don said. “I’ll … I’ll finish it.”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to.” She ran her fingers through her bunned hair. “So, you like pie?”

“Um …”

“We’ve got a fresh made blueberry pie,” she told him. “I’ll get you a slice. On the house.”

“That’s really not necessary,” he said, trying to stop her.

“Nonsense,” she called back, “anything for a serviceman!”

 _Now that’s what I’m talking about_ , said Skip’s voice.


	4. Chapter 4

_Philadelphia_

Babe hurried up the front steps of the brick rowhouse. “Here, sarge,” he said, holding out his hand, “lemme help you up there.”

Bill gave him a dirty look. “Get your ass out of my way, Babe,” he said. “I been managing these steps for six months without you or anybody.” With a firm grasp of the banister he ascended the stairs one at a time, not even nursing the prosthetic under his trouser leg. Babe watched his old sergeant, not knowing what to say.

“Couldn’t you get one with a ramp?” he finally asked.

Bill looked daggers at him. “You grown into a wiseass since Belgium, Babe?”

“No, sarge, I—“

“And, listen,” said Bill. “Call me Bill, all right? Bill. The war’s over. It’s over for both of us.” He knocked on the door, and then began to root for his keys.

The door opened. Out stepped a dark-haired young woman with a sarcastic quirk in her mouth. She went straight to Bill, hands on hips, and said, “It’s about time. The noodles is getting cold.”

She kissed Bill on the lips. Bill cackled and grabbed her with one arm around her waist. To Babe’s shock, Bill spun the girl around, on his leg and his prosthetic, and then put her down. She looked at Babe with merry eyes and said, “This the mick you went to bust out?”

“This is he,” Bill agreed. “A sorry excuse for a bar brawler and a damn fine machine-gunner back in the day. Babe, you know Frances. My wife.”

“Call me Frannie,” she said, shaking Babe’s hand for him. “So you’re the kid from Front Street. You go to Sacred Heart?”

“Sure did. Then Southie.”

“You know the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart?”

“I know how their rulers feel!”

“Ha! You remember Sister Mary Annunziata?”

“The one with the—“

“Yeah on her chin?”

“And it looks like—“

“Right? Like it’s gonna—“

“Oh boy do I ever. Christ!”

“I like him,” she declared. “You like spaghetti? You better. I’m not cooking anything else tonight. So if you don’t like it it’s down to Delancey’s for you for a sandwich. Then off to your pop’s to explain you landing in jail first day back from the Army. Good luck with that, by the way; Bill told me your dad’s a jail guard. You like spaghetti?”

“Sounds like I have to,” Babe quickly replied.

_San Francisco_

They ate at a Chinese-American diner on Eddy, Joe having subgum, David a hamburger. Upon seeing Joe’s plate David appropriated his unused chopsticks and picked up a floret of broccoli. “Broccoli’s Italian,” he said.

“Is it.”

“It is.” David rooted around Joe’s food some more. “And that’s a shrimp. And Joe, I think this is pork.”

“No kidding.”

“Joe, you can’t eat that.”

“Watch me.” Joe slurped up noodles with his fork.

David shook his head. “You constantly perplex me.”

“Eat your hamburger.”

After lunch they headed up the street to the cab company building on the corner of Turk and Jones. The Yellow Cab headquarters in San Francisco occupied half a city block, four stories of garage and offices with a parking lot in the corner. Joe went in through the Turk side and headed straight up a peeling painted staircase.

David followed. “I’ve never been in a taxi company office,” he said. “Where’s the dispatch room?”

“They don’t let nobodies off the street in the dispatch room, dummy. We’re gonna see the hiring manager.”

“You could go in, couldn’t you?”

Joe kept climbing. “This way.” He stomped up the steps. David caught up with him two at a time until the came to the cab company offices.

A receptionist was reading a magazine up front. “Can I help you?” she asked, without looking.

“Yeah. Hi.” To David’s shock Joe looked like he was nervous. “Here to see Mr. Price?”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“Does it look like I got an appointment?”

“What is this regarding?”

“Who is it, Randee?” A heavyset man in shirtsleeves and braces appeared from the back. He glanced at Joe and David. “Can I help you?”

“Mr. Price,” said Joe. “I’m back. Remember me?”

“Can’t say I do, buddy. How can I help you? You looking for a job?”

“Uh, yeah.” Joe approached him. “Can I talk to you?” He glanced at the man’s desk across the office.

“Sure, sure.” He pointed at Dave. “You need a job too?”

“Me? No. No, I’m from New York City.”

“Ah hah. Okay. You, let’s go.” They walked away.

The receptionist looked at Dave. “Wanna sit down, handsome?”

“Oh. Thanks.” He was still watching Joe and Mr. Price. Joe kept his voice low, but still Dave could hear. “… and when?”

“Couple years … ’38.”

“Couple of years?”

“One year.”

“And why’d you leave us?”

“ … to barber college.”

“You’re a barber?”

“No, I’m a veteran.”

“You from NYC?”

The receptionist. “Yes,” said David. “Well, I was born there. We live outside the city now.”

“Must be pricey.”

_Listen, I can start fresh, whatever you got._

“Somewhat.” _Son, I’ve got three hundred vets fresh off the boat looking for work as extras, let alone drivers. We hired a hundred broads during the war, had to let them all go, and we still got too many._

“What’s your line?”

“I’m a writer.”

“Ooh! Like stories? I love stories!”

_You married, son?_

_Why?_

_Would help you. Married men are safer, you know._

“I’m working on a book,” said David.

“Oh, I got the best idea for a book! It’s about this girl, see, who works for a cab company …”

_So?_

_So what._

_Are you married?_

_Not wearing a ring am I._

_Says here you were._

“There’s a strike and she has to start driving too. She meets this guy who turns out to be a mobster!”

_That was back in the ‘30s._

_Wasn’t that long ago. Split up?_

“He gets whacked in her cab, and then the guys who whacked him, they go after her, see, because she’s got the diamonds!”

_Yeah._

_How come?_

“I see the detective as Cary Grant!”

_Didn’t work out. Look, I’ll be an extra, I’ll do shop, whatever._

“And Truman gives her a medal and she lives happily ever after! What do you think?”

_Put your name and where we can reach you. A phone if you got one or can get to one. If I got a space I’ll let you know. Best I can do. Say, you ain’t a k— are you?_

“Sounds great,” said David. “But I don’t think I’m up to it.” He got up. Joe was writing on the pad Price handed him. “That’s in Oakland,” Joe said.

Price read it. “You want to try our Oakland branch?”

“No.” They didn’t shake hands. Joe walked back to David.

“I’m done here. Let’s go.”

“Is everything all right?” asked David.

“It’s fine. Let’s go.” He pushed past him and out the office doors.

David glanced at Price and the receptionist. “Thank you. Good afternoon.”

“Take care of yourself honey,” said the receptionist. “I’ll look for your book when it comes out!”

_New York_

The doors were open, so Don went in. He took off his hat and held it in his hands as he entered the vestibule. He looked at the bulletin board with its notices of pot-luck breakfasts and school events, including one that said, _War Memorial Service (In English), Sunday, 3:30 PM. Veterans welcome!_

Don paused at that. He stared at it for a long time. Were there pictures? There were pictures. He looked at the snapshots of local boys who never made it home. He found the one he was looking for, and it hurt all over again.

_I am a handsome devil, aren’t I?_

“Be quiet,” Don whispered to the ghost.

Not knowing exactly why he was here, he stepped over the threshold into the sanctuary. It was dark. Dim bulbs lit the alcoves; up above, dangling lamps shed a faint glow over the nave. Candles drowned out the electricity, flickering before the images of saints and relics. At the far end, a single flame burned before the tabernacle, keeping vigil before the presence of the divine.

 _Psst. Don_.

Don looked to his left. A cherub held a scallop shell filled with clear, still water. He approached it. For a moment the light from the vestibule and the stillness of the water created a mirror in which he saw two faces, one of which was his own.

“You’re driving me crazy, you know,” Don told the other face. He dipped his fingers into the water, breaking the spell. The water was cool on his brow.

He turned left, and began to walk past the alcoves of the saints. St. Clare. St. Anthony. St. Francis himself, patron of the parish. Some had no candles lit before them, some had a few. St. Jude’s altar flickered with a hundred lit flames.

The patron of the hopeless.

Don looked up. “I forgot,” he said. “I’ve forgotten a lot.”

He heard a noise across the nave, the barest shuffling of soft-soled shoes and the rustle of the hem of a cassock. He turned and saw the shape in the darkness before it stepped into the pool of a lamplight.

“Oh, my,” said the priest. “Excuse me. Didn’t think anyone was still in here.”

Don made himself relax. He still found it too easy to see in the dark; too easy to hear the footsteps of crickets in a field.

“I’m sorry, father,” he apologized. “The doors were open…”

The priest waved off his apology. “No trouble, no trouble.” He approached. He was shorter than Don, and built slightly, with a full head of feathery white hair and deeply creased wrinkles on his face and hands. “I leave them open past eight for just that reason. You never know when people need to come in and have a moment with God, or just with themselves. Or their ghosts.”

“Ghosts?” Don echoed. He tried to smile. “Get a lot of people with ghosts, Father?”

“Oh, much too many,” said the priest with a quiet chuckle. “Much too many, these days.” He shook his head. “This has never been a big town. The war made it smaller. We lost our share of boys. Some would say, more than our share.”

He looked around at the dim interior. Against the darkness the tiny flames of the candles seemed to strive even harder to shine. “I know I should put them out,” the priest said, “but for the life of me I can’t bear to see an altar without at least one bright little flame.” He motioned to the altar of St. Jude. “Have you ever noticed, the ones that are almost out are the ones that shine the brightest?”

Don looked; he was right.

The priest leaned against a pillar. “You’re the fellow who served with Skip.” He chuckled again at Don’s reaction. “Oh, don’t look so surprised. I’m not a mind-reader. It’s a small town. This is the only parish. I’m the pastor. There are a couple of priests here, assisting me or so they say. But I’ve baptized and married practically every Catholic in Tonawanda. Buried more than I care to remember.” He sighed. “Skip was one of my altar boys. I suppose you know that. Oh, he’d spend five days of the week running around, sneaking out of his house and back in—just ask his sister, she’s the one who kept letting him in without their mother knowing, or so they thought; she always knew—then shamble on into the confessional on Saturday afternoon and tell me everything bad he’s done, and I’d tell him, ‘Don’t do it again,’ and he’d promise he’d try. And Sunday there he’d be, wearing his Sunday best under his surplice, helping me with the show. He took it so seriously and yet always with a smile.”

A shine came to the old man’s eyes, though otherwise nothing changed. “He stopped by the rectory a day before he left to join the army,” the priest went on. “He told me he was going off to war, and he’d probably kill people. He wanted to know if God would forgive him. I told him that I believed this war was just, and that he should listen to his conscience, and find himself, if he could, in the company of good men, led by good men. So that grace might follow him … grace might follow him.”

The priest sighed again. He looked at St. Jude. “I prayed so hard he’d come back,” he admitted. “And then I prayed that at least they’d send something back to bury.” He looked down. “It is very difficult, when God does not answer one’s prayers the way one would like.”

Don closed his eyes. Snow, and a wood of planted trees. A jeep, its hood swathed in cloth. A crucifix. A plate. Water. Bread. Wine. The chaplain holding his missal. And, rifle slung on a shoulder, spoon stuck in his coat lapel, Skip, serving. That was January. January just past.

“Father,” Don said. He dug into his pocket. “I have something.” He pulled it out: the fragment of beads, the worn cross. “I was going to give it to his family,” Don confessed, “but I don’t think I can. Take it,” and he took the priest’s hand and pressed the scrap of beads into it. “Maybe you can bury that.”

The priest looked at it. “Well, now,” he started to say, “that’s very kind of you, son, but I really think you should—“ He looked up to see Don’s shadow vanish out the front door.

_New Jersey_

Dick was investigating the bookshelves when he felt someone intrude. He turned to find the man in the anteroom portrait standing in the threshold: Lew’s father, Stanhope.

“Mr. Nixon,” Dick said.

“Winters,” said Stanhope. “Welcome to Farrington Lake.” He was tall, taller than his son, and thinner, more drawn of frame—Lew got his looks from his mother, as did Blanche. His hair was receding and the color of wet iron. His face was clean-shaven and his eyes piercing. Unlike the incongruously cheery sailing clothes in his portrait, he was dressed in a suit, very understated, very expensive. A steel chronograph flashed discreetly beneath one cuff. He did not offer a hand and Dick didn’t either.

“I’m sorry if I startled you,” said Stanhope. “Maybe you were expecting my son.”

There was an edge to the remark, an edge Dick knew well. He didn’t rise to it. “You have a lovely home,” he said.

“I have several homes, actually,” said Stanhope. “This is my favorite. A retreat, if you will. Near enough to the shop, but far enough to enjoy it. The lake. The woods. Did you have a good trip?”

“I did.” The _Gotham Limited_ was the Pennsylvania Railroad’s premier train; Lew sent him the ticket. “Lew drove me from the city.”

“Yes, sorry about that. My fault. I decided I didn’t want to meet you in New York. Perhaps you’ll see my ex-wife there. She’s ill.”

“So I understand. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.” Stanhope’s eyes flicked up and down. “My son is very impressed with you, Winters. He’s practically begged me to give you a job.”

“I hope he hasn’t oversold me, sir.”

“I bet he hasn’t. Have you been to the deck room yet?”

Dick had. The deck room’s floor was spring-loaded, to simulate the sensation of being at sea. Blanche had laughed at him. “It was quite the novelty, sir. Your daughter and I had a swell time.”

“Blanche,” said Stanhope fondly. “Sweet girl. Her mother’s pet, you know. Not mine. Lewis is mine.” He pulled out a cigarette case. “Smoke?”

“No, sir.”

Stanhope grunted. “Don’t believe those fear-mongers. The red man has smoked tobacco on this continent since Japeth.” He lit up and loosed a cloud of poisons. “So. What do you know of my company?”

Dick reacted quickly. “You make plastics. Cellulose nitrate, cellulose acetate, and ethyl cellulose. Your father, Lewis’s namesake, founded the company in the teens to make gun cotton. Cotton is still your main raw material, but now you use it to create pyroxilin to sell as material for other manufacturers.”

Stanhope clapped as if for a child. “Very good! Did Lew make you memorize that? I’m glad he was paying attention after all. What do you know about plastics?”

 _They break; they bend; they burn_. “They’re versatile.”

“Plastics are a wonder,” said Stanhope. “A man-made material that can be shaped into any object we can design, treated to any strength or flexibility we desire. My father knew what he was doing when he sold off our shipyard to concentrate on plastics. You see, the age of steel is passing, major, as did the ages of wood and stone before them. This new age is the age of plastics.” He nodded at Dick’s ribbons and decorations. “And the atomic bomb, of course.”

Dick’s mouth wanted to twitch. He controlled himself. “I’m sure I have plenty to learn, sir.”

Stanhope laughed, big, loud. “Good sport. Good sport! Is that what you’re wearing?”

Dick looked down at his uniform. “This is my best outfit, which is why I wore it.”

“Impressive. But a little out of date. War’s over, Winters. You’re just a man again.” Stanhope slapped him on the arm. “Don’t think you aren’t.”


	5. Chapter 5

_Philadelphia_

“This is the best spaghetti I’ve ever tasted, Frannie!” declared Babe, pushing himself away from his third helping.

“Ha,” said Bill. “Listen to you shining us on. I’m the better cook.”

“But you were down busting this guy out, so who had to take up the fight?” Frannie tugged at her blouse. “Me! And I did pretty well if I do say so myself.”

“What does this kid know from food?” roared Bill. “He’s Irish!”

They all laughed. “That reminds me of Don,” said Babe. “Good ol’ Malark, everyone kept complaining when he did the cooking, but boy did we eat his cooking.” He grinned at Frannie, who was listening intently. “’course, every now and then you busted a tooth on shrapnel from the ammo box he cooked in—“

“But you swallowed it anyway, yadda, yadda, yadda,” interrupted Bill, startling Babe. “Easy, Babe, you’re boring my girl.”

“No he isn’t,” Frances shot back, “I think it’s fascinating. You never talk about anything.”

Babe’s eyes opened wide. “Really? You don’t talk about it?”

Bill shook his head. “Nah,” he says. “Hey, Frannie, what’s for dessert?”

“Ice cream.”

“Thank God. Thought you tried to make cookies. That sound good, Babe?”

“Cookies?”

“Ice cream.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. I’m up for that.”

“It’s Neapolitan,” said Frannie. “All three or just one?”

Bill held up three fingers. Frannie smirked again.

Both men watched her go. Babe shook his head. “Wow,” he said to Bill. “She still looks just like in that picture you used to carry around. How’d you meet again?”

Bill mugged. “I was shooting craps on 17th and McKean like always. She was walking by like usual, I never noticed her before, she was just some skinny kid. Well I noticed her that time. She wasn’t skinny no more. She was thirteen, I was sixteen, but God, I fell in love. I tried to charm her, and she busted my chops in front of everybody. God, what a girl. What a woman.”

“And she sent you off overseas with that picture!” Babe could still see it: Frances in a grass skirt, eyes quirked, arms on hips.

Bill slapped at him. “Watch it, Babe, that’s my wife now.”

Babe didn’t mind. “Must have been some wedding, huh?”

“Nah, we eloped,” Bill replied. “Took off one day to Elkton Maryland. Honeymooned with Johnny Martin and his wife in Columbus.”

“Martin?”

“Johnny, yeah, of course. You know him and his wife and us are tight.”

“Johnny,” said Babe, as if he’d never said it before. He took a drink of his beer. “But why’d you have to elope? I thought you gave her an engagement ring before you shipped out.”

“Promise ring, Babe. Different thing.”

“Still—“

“Ain’t important. We just eloped, okay? That’s that.” He changed the subject. “What about you? Which girl you come to see?”

“Aw, Bill, I just got back.”

“What, you’re not looking up darling Doris?”

“Aw, quit that.”

“Not gonna stand up and hook up any time soon?”

“What, and disappoint all the lovely ladies of the city of brotherly love?”

“I don’t think brotherly love is what you got in mind, Babe!”

They lingered long over the dessert, sipping beers and listening to Bill recount his days since leaving Easy Company. How long it took him to recover. Being fitted for a wooden leg. “Which I swear is worse than losing the goddamn leg to begin with,” he told Babe. He had to wear it, though, because he needed his hands when he was at work. “I do what I got to do, took a couple of engineering courses. Whatever I can do. I got to go back to the hospital every month for more rehabilitation. But I’ll figure something out. I always do.” Frances reached over and squeezed his hand, and Bill smiled back at her.

Fran turned to Babe. “What about you, Babe? What do you plan to do?”

“I don’t know,” Babe said. “It’s weird. It’s like, I lived so long not knowing if I was going to make it back or not, and now I have, it’s like—I don’t know what to do with myself.” He chuckled. “Know anybody can get me a job?”

“You can get yourself a job, Babe,” Bill said. “No point dwelling on what’s past. You got to situate yourself for the future.”

But Babe was enthused. “Hard to imagine I’d be sitting here in a nice house, eating a nice meal, when we drove into Bastogne, eh, sarge?”

Suddenly Bill slapped the table with the flat of his hand, making Fran and Babe start. He lifted his hand back up and pointed a finger at Babe.

“Babe,” he said, “I told you already: leave the past, in the past. Nobody cares.”

He pulled himself to his feet. “Bill—“ Frances said, but Bill moved with surprising alacrity.

Frances turned to Babe, who was sitting there, shocked.

“Like I said,” she apologized. “Bill doesn’t like to talk about what happened over there. Ever.” She quirked a smile at him. “It’s okay. He’ll cool down in a moment. Then again, you probably know that. You probably know him better than I do.”

“I thought I did,” Babe replied. Suddenly the coffee seemed colder.

_San Francisco_

It was past five o’clock. David sat at the bar in the club room of the hotel, nursing a Tom Collins. He had purchased a copy each of the Chronicle and the Examiner and had opened them to the classifieds, looking for work. But not for him.

“Excuse me, do you have the time?”

David looked up. A pleasant young man his own age, in a shortsleeved shirt and pullover vest, had approached him. A clock stood ticking obviously nearby.

David checked his watch anyway. “Quarter past five,” he rounded.

“Thanks,” said the fellow. He reached into his pants pocket and drew out a packet of cigarettes. “Have a light?”

David got out his lighter. “Thanks,” the fellow said again. He seemed to wait for David to flick it open. David did. The fellow bent over with his cigarette between his lips and puffed.

He straightened up. “I’m Jake,” he said, still pleasantly. “From out of town?”

“New York City,” David responded.

“The _big_ city. Staying at the hotel?”

“I am.”

“Very nice.” Jake leaned against the bar, facing away. Out of the side of his mouth he whispered, “You don’t happen to be at loose ends, do you?”

David thought he misheard. “Pardon?”

“Hey. Nancy.” Joe had appeared, still in his undershirt and dungarees. “He’s with me.”

One of the waiters went to block him, but David said, “No, it’s fine, we’re guests here.”

Jake seemed unfazed. He glanced Joe up and down, then back at David, and said to Joe, smiling wider: “You boys back from the war together? I can do two on one.” He winked at David. “Or he can.”

Joe hit him.

Quickly the waiters and the bartender descended upon them all. “No trouble in here!” said the bartender. “Take it outside!”

One waiter, tall, blond, good-looking, shoved Jake out the exit. “You heard him, Jill.”

Jake’s voice became rough and nasal. “Aw come on, Mickey, I got to make a living too!”

“You want the B of E to come down on the _St. Francis_?” hissed another patron. “For God’s sake boys!”

Jake, or Jill, flipped them the bird and exited to the lobby. The waiter, Mickey, watched him until he was out of the hotel proper.

Now the bartender turned to David and Joe. “Sorry about that, boys,” he said. “Drinks on the house.”

“Whiskey,” said Joe. The bartender went to pour. “You okay?”

David’s mind was still reeling. “Yeah,” he lied. “Fine. How did he get in here?”

“Jesus, Web, you don’t know?” Joe got his whiskey and downed it in a single gulp. “Another, pal.” He lowered his voice. “This place is a pickup scene.”

David was aghast. “This is the Oak Room!”

“It’s a pickup scene,” Joe reiterated. “When I was driving I’d pick up swells from all over, East Bay, suits from other hotels, and they’d ask me, straight out, where can I pick up a guy? And I told them: you want quiet, you want class, you don’t want the girls at the Silver Rail. And I took ‘em here. Sometimes I take ‘em back, too, after.” He swallowed his second shot, nodded for another.

“You said girls,” David pointed out.

Joe looked at him.

David looked around. Other patrons—there were not a few—were pretending to be engrossed in their own conversations, or their newspapers, or their drinks. One caught his eye, a well-dressed man with a bar in his tie. The man nodded, not out of interest, but warning.

Joe downed his third shot. “You been here couple of hours,” he said, “some of these guys probably started thinking you were in the life too.”

“Oh my God.” David got up.

Joe downed a fourth shot. “Hold on, hold on. I’m done.”

David said nothing all the way back to their room. “Jesus, Dave, wait up,” said Joe as he followed him into their room. “What’re you doing now?”

David had taken out his suitcase. “Packing. We’re leaving.”

“Aw, you don’t like your fancy hotel anymore just because its men’s club’s full of queers? So’s the Top of the Mark!”

“I don’t give a shit about the Top of the Mark,” said David. “And I am perfectly happy for inverts to enjoy themselves however they want. But not with me and not at my expense.”

He jumped as Joe slammed the suitcase shut. “Who do you think you’re talking to?” Joe demanded. “Who do you think you’re kidding? Fuck, Web, I know why you brought me here.”

David grabbed at his case. “You’re drunk.”

“Come on, Web! The trip? The train? ‘I’ll take you home, we’ll both go,’ fuck. A fucking hotel room at the fucking St. Francis with just one bed? You paying for everything? Lunch, dinner probably, fucking ‘Oklahoma’ at the Curran? You think I’m some chump who doesn’t know what’s what? I know what you want. I know what you’ve been trying to buy.”

David threw his suitcase across the room. “Did you ever think I did all this because I cared about you, Joe?” he shouted. “Did you ever think maybe I cared about you, that your friendship meant a lot to me in the field, that I want to be generous, because I can, not out of any interest other than to make you happy? Because you’ve been unhappy, Joe! The closer we’ve gotten to the place you call home, you’ve gotten more unhappy! Why?”

Now it was Joe who turned away. “None of your business.”

“That man at the cab company said you were married. This is the first I’ve heard of it!”

“None of your business!”

“He said you left to go to barber school. Are you? Are you a cab driver or a barber or a married man? Are you even Jewish?”

Joe turned on him. “It’s none of your business so leave me alone!”

David grabbed him by the wrist. “I’m your friend. I’ve made it my business!”

Joe shoved him. David fell on the bed, sprang back up. He grabbed him again. Joe roared and twisted and threw them both to the floor. They wrestled and rolled, knocking over a lamp, knocking aside the table and chairs. Joe got the upper hand. He rolled over and pinned David to the carpet, holding him down with a wild gleam in his eyes.

They stopped. Their hearts pounding. Pulses racing. Mouths dry.

They both knew what was going to happen. They did it anyway.

_New Jersey_

Dick took one step on the floor and felt it give.

It must have communicated his movements across the room. Lew, standing by himself staring out the screen porch, turned to him and smiled quizzically.“Wondering where you were.”

“I met your father.”

“Shit,” said Lew. “I should have been there. Are you leaving?” he quipped.

The floor moved. It was Blanche. “Lew,” she said urgently. “She’s here.”

“Great,” said Lew. “Come on, Dick, time to meet our wicked stepmother.”

“No,” said Blanche. “Not her. Irene.”

Lew looked confused. “What? The hell she is.” He pushed past Dick, making the floor roll. In his wake Blanche and Dick shared a look of apprehension, and then followed.

They came upon the two women in the foyer, merrily gabbing. Dick recognized one immediately: Irene, Lew’s new wife, whom he’d met in England. She had a new hairstyle, and a new dress, discreetly expensive. The other woman looked a little like Mae West: big, buxom, and, indeed, wearing a gray fox around her shoulders with its teeth bared, its feet dangling lifelessly. Her hair was the color of peroxide.

She spotted him. “This him? This must be him!” She paraded over. “You must be Dick, Lew’s pal from the army. I’m the second wife. Ha! Call me Bess.”

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

“Happy happy.” She turned to the younger woman. “You didn’t tell me he was a redhead! I love redheads.”

“I should have thought Lew would have told you,” said Irene. “Hullo, captain! Oh, wait, it’s major now, isn’t it?”

“It’s just plain Dick now, Irene. How are you?”

“’Just plain ol’ Dick now,’” mimicked Bess. “Ain’t he a card? Look at him blush, I set him off!”

Dick heard voices from an adjoining room. He couldn’t make out all the words, but they were angry.

“ … should have told me she was …”

“ … a surprise …”

“ … my ass, Dad! What about Mom? Who’s …”

“ … an entire floor of Doctors Hospital, she’s …”

“—not the point—”

“—bring home _two_ war brides and not expect it to blow up in your face!”

Blanche interposed herself between Dick and the other women. “I think we’re about to go through,” she said with exaggerated brightness. “Come with me, Dick, I think we’re sitting next to each other.”

“Oh I say,” teased Irene, “is there something Lewis didn’t tell me?”

“Honey,” said Bess to Dick, “you watch yourself, these Nixons are ten kinds of trouble!”

They ate a long table with candlesticks sporting anchors and tridents, putting out needless light. The housekeeper, Lillian, served. There was vichyssoise to begin, followed by a salad of bibb lettuce and French dressing, and brioche rolls with daintily shaved curls of hard chilled butter. The main course followed, chicken veronique, served with rice and green beans almondine. To drink, there was a dry white wine, in several bottles.

Dick watched the others. Bess had a healthy appetite. Irene happily buttered her rolls but barely touched her soup. Blanche ate the fruit from her dish but left the chicken untouched.

Lew and his father tore through their helpings like men late for an appointment. Lew jointed a wing so hard his knife screeched on the porcelain.

“Lew,” chided Blanche.

“Oh leave me alone,” he responded, glutting down his wine. Not waiting for Lillian, he poured himself another.

“Wine on top of whiskey,” said Irene, “dear, you’ll have one of those awful headaches. Have some water at least, clear the mechanism.”

“You know the cure for that,” said Bess, nudging Dick with a wink.

“How was your soup?” Blanche asked Dick.

“Good,” he replied. “After I got used to it.”

“My compliments to the cook, but I detest cold soup,” Irene said. “I also happen to be watching my figure. Ever since Lew brought me over I’ve been eating like a Hindu at Ramadan. You know how it is,” she added to Blanche.

“Muslim,” murmured Lew around his glass. “Muslims have Ramadan.”

“What did I say?”

“Hindu.”

“Oh. Well. Those people. You know what I mean.”

“Aw, girls, let me tell you, men of substance like women of substance,” Bess declared. “Am I right, Stan?” Stanhope smiled and wiped his mouth on his napkin, his eyes dancing blackly. “You gonna be called a broad, might as well be broad, is what I say. Don’t you worry a thing about your weight, Blanche darling, no use starving yourself when you’ll never get down to a size two.”

Dick saw Blanche color, and Lew’s hand close around his fork.

He spoke up. “Sir, I understand Lew and Blanche’s mother is in the hospital. How is she?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know, major,” Stanhope replied. “Didn’t stop by. Had a few properties to sell and buy. Reenee here was keeping her company.”

Irene hastily put down her wineglass. “Yes, she’s resting very comfortably. I must say I wouldn’t mind having to go through an op if I had that kind of care. But she’s such an admirable woman. All her causes and charities.”

“Mother is one of the most admired women on the West Coast,” Blanche boasted to Dick. “She founded this organization that trains dogs to guide the blind, serve as their eyes, you know? And her work with the Women’s Volunteers Association, and the veterans hospitals, and the United Nations with Mrs. Roosevelt—“

“Yes, she does marvelous work,” agreed Irene weakly, watching Bess furiously stabbing grapes. “Lewis visits daily, don’t you, dear?”

Lew glanced at Dick. “When I can.”

“The shop should keep him busy,” said Stanhope. “We’re expanding. Hiring new people every day. Like Dick here.” Stanhope set his eyes back on Dick. “If he passes his interview.”

“Well it’s a mere formality at this point I’m sure,” said Irene.

“We’ll see,” Stanhope replied. “I have to be certain he knows where he fits in the scheme of things.”

“No one can forget where you want them in your scheme of things, Dad,” Lew rejoined.

“Well the major, I mean Dick,” Irene said again, clearing her throat, “is an excellent, excellent officer. I heard all the stories from my girlfriends. They dated all the men in that regiment, and their admiration was quite unanimous.”

“But he is not a major anymore,” Stanhope said. “How will he respond to being an employee? An underling? How do you think you’ll handle that, Dick? Might take you some time to adjust. If I hire you.”

“Well hell if you’re not gonna hire him why all this malarky?” complained Bess. “I’m bored, Stan. Let’s talk about something else. I got a horse at the races this week. You like the horses, Dick?”

Lew answered for him. “Dick doesn’t gamble, Bess.”

“You don’t smoke, you don’t drink, you don’t gamble, Lord, sonny, don’t you have any vices at all?”

“No,” said Lew. “That’s what I like about him.”

Blanche smiled.

“I dunno,” steamrolled on Bess. “I don’t trust a man who hasn’t got flaws.”

“Then you must love us,” stage-whispered Blanche.

“You got something to say, baby doll?” said Bess heatedly.

“I have flaws,” said Dick.

Lew pretended to be shocked. “Name one.”

“Pride.”

Lew thought about it. “Name two.”

“Self-righteousness,” said Stanhope evenly. Dick looked back at him. The paterfamilias glanced away.

“Well I think it’s time for dessert,” said Lew. “Lillian,” he called to the serving door, “honey, we’re in a situation here!”

“Dammit, Lulu,” said Blanche, “don’t make it worse.”

“How can it possibly be worse?”

“There is no situation,” said Stanhope. “This is a robust and entertaining meal.”

“I thought the _poulet veronique_ quite fine,” offered Irene.

Blanche was still sniping at Lew. “You’re drunk.”

“I’m a Nixon. I’m always drunk.”

“I’m not.”

“Oh that’s right. You’re a Ryer. A Ryer of San Francisco. I forgot.”

“Shall we change the subject?” stammered Irene.

“Hey, Tokyo Rose!” hollered Bess. “Double-time on that baked alaska!” She chuckled, but her eyes were cold.

Stanhope still seemed amused. “My daughter doesn’t like to be reminded of her East Coast heritage,” he pretended to explain to Dick. “Her mother often forgets that her family’s agricultural fortune was built on the backs of migrants and Mexicans.”

“At least she’s using her privileges for good,” Blanche shot back, “to build a better world for everyone, instead of despoiling it and poisoning it and blowing it up like your horrid factory!”

“Listen, toots, your mother—” Bess started.

Dead sober and dead serious Lew said, “Don’t you say a word about our mother.”

“Lew!” gasped Irene. “Please!”

“Oh I see,” said Bess. “I see how it is. Well, kiddo, you can look down on me all you want, you and your Ivy League and your Yale Club and your fancy liquor. You ain’t earned none of it. Not one red cent. Your bread gets buttered from the same crock as mine, kiddos, and I know how to be grateful.”

Lew laughed openly and drained his wine.

“You see how we are, Dick?” cried Blanche, turning to him. “Better you should know now, before you get in any deeper!”

“Young lady,” said Stanhope, “you’re excused.”

Blanche threw down her napkin and ran out of the room.

“I’ll send you some ice cream,” said Lew in her wake.

Dick had risen for her. Now he sat back down, wondering what to say. Bess had resumed eating. Irene held her wine glass very meekly, not drinking. Lew was drinking, great copious pours. Stanhope had crossed his cutlery and moved his plate aside.

The housekeeper Lillian returned. She was holding a towering frozen ice cream cake on a tray, condensation swirling above the crust.

“Oh a _bombe surpríse_ ,” murmured Irene. “How splendid.”

_New York_

Don switched the ignition off. He sat there for a long time, thinking things over. The trees murmured around him in a faint chill wind. The engine of his rented car coughed, settling into itself. Don listened to the sounds, wondering if he’d hear the voice he was waiting for. But no. It was silent. Maybe that was it. Maybe giving the rosary to the priest to bury was all that he’d been intended to do. That was his mission. Mission accomplished. He was useless now.

He nodded, and got out.

The Niagara River seethed in its bed, barely visible in the half-moonlight through the stands of trees. It was full, though not overly so, Lake Erie’s shallow waters spilling swiftly past Grand Island with all the turbidity of the city of Buffalo running along with it. Far down past the curve, Don imagined he could hear the roar of the river’s rapids, where the tumultuous current gathered itself for its paired plummets down to Lake Ontario and the distant St. Lawrence.

The current was swift.

Don looked around. He was far from the park entrance, far from the riverside drive; far among trees and bushes leading abruptly to a brief gravelly shore. No one would find him here. No one to stop him now.

He took a step and began to climb down.

At the edge of the water he paused. He reached into his shirt. A St. Christopher’s Medal. His grandmother gave it to him. He grabbed it and yanked its chain until it broke. He couldn’t wear this.

But it wouldn’t come free. He looked down, puzzled. The medal had become entwined with the chain of his dogtags. The dogtags he still wore. He tugged at one chain, and then the other; the steel cord, and the golden cord; neither would give. They were inextricably intertwined.

“Fine,” he said aloud. “I’ll be damned.”

He took a step. His shoe filled with cold, hard water. He took another step. Cold crept up from his ankles into the vessels of his calves and thighs. He took another step and another and another. About three feet out from shore, teeth chattering, he stopped. The river’s strength was unbelievable. It was all he could do to remain standing. He could see how even a strong swimmer, intent on his purpose, could swim across and still find himself miles downstream by the time he reached the opposite shore. A weak swimmer might find himself dashed against the rocks in front of the Falls. Or over the Falls themselves. Like a warrior of old.

He wasn’t planning to swim.

“I give up.” His breath was visible. “I surrender.” He could barely get the words out. He closed his eyes, and let himself fall.


	6. Chapter 6

_Philadelphia_

Babe knew exactly when he started losing sleep. It was when he watched a boy bleed to death in the snow. Babe had been five feet—five feet—away, and hadn’t been able to reach him. Hadn’t even been able to touch him. The kid bled out, who had asked Babe to take care of him in case anything happened to him. Red blood melting the winter snow.

It hadn’t been the same after that. Still, Babe counted himself better off than others. He hadn’t gone crazy. Too many had gone crazy, or nearly so. Or maybe he just hid it well. Maybe they all hid it as well as they could.

He got up. The alarm clock in the guest room said midnight. Maybe a little warm milk. With something to make it Irish. Yeah, that would do the trick.

He got up. He pulled his pants off the bedpost and put them on. Quiet on his feet, Babe snuck down the staircase to the kitchen, wondering yet again how Bill managed stairs, knowing that obviously he did.

He was surprised to see a light on in the parlor. He walked in, scratching his eyes. “Bill?”

Bill was sitting on an armchair by a window. His arms were folded on his chest. He had no drink, no cigarette, no book or paper. Neither was the radio on. Bill was sitting by himself lit by the reading lamp behind the armchair, lost in thought, or so it seemed. His right pajama leg was tied off with a knot.

He glanced up. “Couldn’t sleep, Babe?”

“Nah,” Babe said, scratching the cowlick threatening atop his head. “Thought I’d make myself some warm milk. You mind if I borrow some whiskey?”

Bill pointed his chin across the room. “Liquor cabinet’s over there. You gonna return what you borrow?”

“In the john maybe.” Babe caught himself. “Heh, listen to me: I’m British. ‘The john’.” He mimicked a snooty English accent.

“You’re no George Luz, Babe,” Bill responded. “Keep your day job.”

Babe chuckled. “You ever hear from Luz, sarge?” he asked as he poured some milk in a saucepan over a low flame.

“Got a telephone call from him just the other week,” said Bill.

“Yeah? How is he?”

“Settling back down in Rhode Island. Starting a business, fixing things.”

“Is that right. You mean construction?”

“Nah, just, you know, handyman stuff. One thing is George Luz is handy. Now, Peewee, Johnny, he’s getting into construction.”

“I thought he worked at the railroad.”

“He did, and he does, but he plans to go to college and start his own construction company.”

Babe came back, pouring a splash of whiskey into his milk and taking a sniff. Ah, just the way he liked it. “You hear from him since you honeymooned there?”

“Sure. Letters. Phone calls. Hope to see him soon.” Bill looked at Babe’s cup. “God damn it, now I’m thirsty.” He started to get up, but Babe stopped him.

“Don’t bother yourself, sarge,” he said. “I’ll get it for you.”

“God damn it, kid, I ain’t no invalid.”

“No you’re not, but you don’t got both legs neither.”

Bill gazed up at him. Babe didn’t back down.

“Fine,” Bill said. “Don’t let me get used to this, I might hire you out as me nurse.”

Babe poured a splash of whiskey into a glass. “I dunno. Fran might get jealous.”

“Hah!” Bill cackled. “So long as you’re not sharing my foxhole, Babe, she’ll let you take over running the house.”

“Like there’s a chance in hell a that happening,” Babe said with a smile. “Now, if it was Doc …”

“Shaddap.” Bill took the glass. “Thank you. _Salut’_.”

“ _Sláinte_.” They drank. “Ah,” said Babe after a moment, letting the hot whiskeyed milk settle into his stomach. “That sure hits the spot.” He sucked in air through his teeth.

Then he looked at his sergeant and friend. “Say Bill?”

“Yep.”

“Why’d you and Frannie elope?”

Bill shrugged. “Cuz we wanted to.”

“Couldn’t wait?”

“We waited three years. She did, anyway.” Bill scratched at his knee. That knee. “Then I come home and—“ He waved a hand at unseen bugs. “Anyway. So we did.”

Babe nodded. He glanced around the room. He fiddled with his drink.

He said it. “Was it the leg?”

He braced himself again. Bill’s brown eyes were hard as flint when Babe looked at them. But nothing happened. Bill kept on sitting there, quiet, scratching at the knee over the empty place where his leg had been.

“Nobody’d told them about the leg,” he said. He shrugged. “When Fran and her folks came to visit me, hell, it was a surprise. You see a fella all laid up like that, half a him missing, I don’t care how polite you are, it shows. I saw it. I saw it on their faces. I saw it on hers. Who'd blame 'em? It was a shock.”

“They wanted to call off the wedding?”

Bill nodded. “Later she said they told her to drop me. It’s only gonna get worse as he gets older, they told her. You’ll be a nurse, your children will hear their father called names. All that bull crap.” He waved again at invisible flies. “I showed ‘em. I can do anything I could a done before. Maybe slower. But I can do it.”

“Jeez,” said Babe. “If it was me I’d a given 'em a piece of my mind.”

“So what?” said Bill. “Can you blame 'em? Ain’t like they didn’t have a point. Nobody wants their daughter married to a cripple.”

The ugliness of the word hung in the air like smoke.

Suddenly Bill’s face crumpled. He put a hand up to his nose, pressed his knuckles to his face. Babe, shocked, didn’t know what to do.

Quickly Bill recovered. “Ah, I’m Italian,” he said, and he had regained his composure. “Like I said, I get around fine. This ain’t gonna stop me from nothing.” He gave Babe a look. “You got all _your_ faculties. What’s your excuse?”

It caught Babe off guard. “I dunno,” he said. “I guess I figured it’ll come to me.”

“You wait too long, the wolf’s gonna come for you. At the door.”

“I know! I know. I don’t know.” Babe shot up, started pacing. “I just can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t believe you don’t talk about it.” He didn’t say what and he didn’t need to. The war. Their war. The big one, that had devoured the globe, and the little one, that they had seen and taken part in. Friends lost and enemies killed.

“I don’t talk about it because I don’t want to share it,” Bill said. “It’s sacred. What you and I saw, what we went through.” He smote his breast. “It means that much. What do people need to know for? They already get to have the world we saved, you and me and the ones we left behind. Why do they need to know?”

Babe shook his head. “Because they'll forget," he replied. "And I can't."

He glanced over at the armchair. Bill’s brow was knotted, his eyes fixed again into the distance, deep in thought. Babe let him be.

_San Francisco_

David leaned against the sink. He studied his face and his chest. Yes, those would leave a mark. Trust Joe to make it hurt.

He turned to the bath. The shower was already steaming. Gingerly, sore all over and inside, he stepped over the side of the tub and into the pouring stream.

Ahh. He turned his face to the spout. The water drenched his dark curls, ran down his face, his bruised lips, his neck and his shoulders. Down the dark hair that covered his chest, the cobbles of his stomach. Between his legs. He touched himself, winced. Between his thighs, pale under the dark hair. Down his legs and calves and feet. Into the drain.

He finished and stepped out, wrapping a towel around his waist. Joe was standing once more at the window, naked, smooth as a boy, his belly hollow, hands on his jutting hips. Staring out at the world.

“Joe?” David ventured. “You want to freshen up?”

Joe ignored him. “I never been up here before, you know?” He indicated the square, the Dewey monument, the apartments and department stores and hotels, the people in the fog. “That year I hacked for Yellow, I’d pick up fares at this stand, or take ‘em here like I said. I’d see this place lit up from the street. And I’d wonder who was in it, what they was doing, you know. The movie stars and the mobsters and the queers. Fuck. Now here I am.”

David went to him. It seemed too much to touch him again. They’d both recoil. Instead he sighed. “You’ll be all right.”

“You don’t know that.” Joe turned. “Why me, Dave?” he asked. “I ain’t even nice to you.”

“I told you. I want you to be happy.”

“What for?” asked Joe. “Nobody _deserves_ to be happy. Just lucky if you are, and it never lasts.”

He turned back to the window. His eyes drifted along the scene beneath them. David waited.

“Frances was this girl.” Joe pressed a hand on the glass. It frosted in a halo between his fingers. “She was fifteen. I was eighteen. Her pop wanted to kill me. Mine almost did. He’s old-fashioned, Pop. A barber. Knows his way around a strop.”

He let out a breath. “So we got hitched, and we played house, and I got a job and drove a cab. Even when it turned out, you know, she wasn’t, I was scot-free, we still tried for a while. Played house. Showed Pop I knew how to be a good guy. Show him I knew how to be a man. Like him. I was eighteen and driving a cab and going to barber college so I could be just like him.”

He shrugged. “Then it was over, and it didn’t seem real. Like it never happened. Sometimes it feels like it never did. I moved out, lived here, drove a cab. Got my barber license. The war started, and I joined up. You know the rest.”

David had sat down on the bed. “Is your father why you don’t want to go home?”

“Like I’m the only one?” asked Joe. “You ain’t in Bronxville. You ain’t at Harvard. You’re here. With me.” He sat down next to him. “You don’t want to go back neither.”

He was right. David hadn’t wanted to admit it. His parents, his sister, his brother, his privileged life—he had it better than Joe. Better than most. But somehow he too felt he had passed a point of no return.

Joe was mulling something again. The same thing he had been thinking all evening. “Dave?”

“Yes?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Would you stay, if I asked you?”

David wasn’t sure what he meant. “Here?”

“Wherever.” Joe pointedly avoided his gaze or any other’s. “Would you come with me, if I asked you?” he asked. “If I went somewhere, would you follow? Would you miss me if I left?”

David shook his head.

“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “You’ll find a place. You’ll find a job. And until then, you have your GI benefits to live off of.”

Joe stared at him. “GI benefits.” He got up.

“Twenty dollars a month,” said David, rising too, following him. “You could even go to college. The government will pay for tuition and everything, at any institution that will accept you.” Now he touched him. Turned him around, held him by his shoulders. Man to man. “There is a whole future waiting for you. For us. All you have to do is take it, Joe. This is what we fought for. This is our reward!”

Looking back David would remember this as the moment he lost Joe forever.

_New Jersey_

Dick stared at the lake. It was dark, glassy. A fallen tree lay on the bank, half-stripped by years. The spigot of a fountain, inactive, poked above the ripples near the shore, like a tiny monster.

A lonely figure was walking along the shore. Blanche. Barefoot, her cigarette in its holder in her hands. She smiled at him as he approached; she’d been crying. “What a disaster, huh?” Her smile was brittle. “Did Lulu send you out for me?”

“No. He’s taken Irene home. To Princeton.”

“Ah.” She nodded. “And you?”

“It’s late. I’m not sure I should make him take me back to the city. Where are you staying?”

“Here.” She laughed. “Marooned here with that woman and my father. You still want to enlist?”

He ignored her quips. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Who, me? I’m fine. I’ll be fine. I don’t live here. When Mom’s out of the hospital, we’re back to San Francisco. You should come with us,” she added. “My mother would appreciate a man like you.”

He shook his head. “But Lew offered me a job here.”

She studied him. “You’re very close, aren’t you.”

“We are,” he answered simply. “He’s my shadow. I don’t feel complete without him.”

“I don’t even know what that’s like.”

“One day you will.”

“I suppose I’d like to.”

She drew closer. She placed a hand on his chest. He allowed it. She gazed longingly up at him. “Your eyes are so clear,” she whispered. “Like water.”

“I hope they’re stronger than that,” he answered.

“But water is the strongest of substances,” she insisted. “Water wears away rock. Dissolves metal. Drowns continents. Given world enough and time, water can wash anything away …”

She kissed him. He let her. They stood by the lakeside, in the moonlight, long and lingering, a tall young man with a long sad face and bright red hair, and a dark, pale young woman, on her tiptoes, a cigarette burning forgotten in one hand.

Then Blanche fell back and covered her face. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Blanche.”

“No, I mean it. It’s me. Little Blanche, always stealing her brother’s toys.”

“That’s not what this is.”

“Oh, come on, Dick.” She shook her head. “We both know I’m not the sibling you love.”

The casualness of her implication hit the hardest. Dick went very still. “I’ve heard that before,” he said. “It’s mistaken.”

“Is it?” she said, eyes glittering. “Look at you. A paragon of men. As flawless as carven stone. Michelangelo wished he had a David as perfect. But David didn’t care for princesses or dancing girls or someone else’s wife. He only ever loved Jonathan. Son of the king who hated him. Oh, it doesn’t have to be physical,” she added, seeing him revolt. “At the start or at the end. I suppose it comes out that way, if it can, if given the chance. But even when it’s not, it’s still there, just as real. Like water. The most powerful thing there is. Washing everything away.”

He didn’t budge.

She turned aside. For a long time they remained silent. Blanche swaying a little, sipping from her cigarette holder, watching the moonlight on the lake. Dick immobile.

Finally he spoke. “I don’t know what to do.”

“About Lew?”

“About _anything!_ ” he exclaimed, and for once it was a relief, to drop the front and let it out, to be uncertain, to be confused, to be angry, to be afraid. To not be the stoic hero cast in bronze. “I’m at a loss. Your father didn’t mean to be helpful but that doesn’t make him wrong. I’m no longer an army officer, a leader, in charge. Only a man who doesn’t know where to go from here. You call me flawless, but I’m not. I’m not stone or saint or paragon. God knows I’m not.” He closed his eyes. “I don’t know where I fit in.”

She came back to him. Took his hands in hers. Her eyes, so like her brother’s, sparkled with the same sadness beyond their years. “Nor does anyone else,” she told him. “Welcome to the human race, Dick.”

They stood there chastely for a while, holding hands, listening to the evening woods murmuring above the still and glassy lake.

_New York_

Something all but hurled Don back to shore.

He broke out onto the bank, rolled over, tried to sit up. “Stop it.” He tasted gravel and rich dark earth and the detritus of cities and towns and lives across the heart of the continent. “Stop it. I can’t take it anymore. I’m not strong enough. I’m not brave enough. Stop it and let me go. Let me go.”

He tried to throw himself back into the water. Only his head. All it took was a few inches. But he couldn’t. The chains he wore, his dogtags and his St. Christopher’s medal, they were entangled together, caught on a branch trailing into the stream.

“Jesus, stop it!” he cried to the darkness, to the river, to the stars. “What do you want from me? Why don’t you just let me go?”

He started to cry. He didn’t realize it at first. He knew his throat was trapped in the middle of a gasp of anguish that he couldn’t find a way to complete. But it was the tears, hot down his cheeks, that surprised him. He didn’t cry. He didn’t. He hadn’t cried in months.

He hadn’t cried while others broke and couldn’t stop weeping. He hadn’t cried when friends got hit. He hadn’t cried when friends lost their legs, or shot themselves, or got shot through and paralyzed.

He hadn’t cried when their medic wandered past him like a fallen angel, after the Bastogne aid station was shelled, and they’d lost one of the nurses.

He hadn’t even cried when they found the camp. Not even then. Not even standing looking down at the murdered with the cattle marks on their arms. He had thrown up at night; he gone back the next day, to feed them and clothe them and herd them back into their prisons for their own good or so the Army said; but he hadn’t cried.

He had not cried when the POWs were executed, not even for that boy from Oregon. Like him. Oregon was a long way away; even when he was there, he was still somewhere else.

He hadn’t cried when his friends got hit. Not when he heard. Not when he ran to the blackened hole in the ground.

He mourned, sure, but that was the way it had to be: _it wasn’t me. It wasn’t me_. On the line day in and day out, friends and brothers falling this way and that, he had to think: _it wasn’t me. Thank God it wasn’t me._

But that one time, thanking God it wasn’t him meant thanking God it was Skip.

“Skip,” Don said now. “Oh, Jesus, _Skip_ …”

He buried his face in his hands. Like a boat on the Columbia, caught on its monstrous bar, marooned against the battering waves until it had no choice but break apart. From one river to another, a continent in between, he had run, already old at twenty-five, unable or unwilling to rejoin the world.

Don looked up. The river gleamed relentless between here and the farther shore. “Skip …” he said again, and there was nothing left to do but confess. “I’m sorry,” he told the absence. “I never cried for you. I thought it was better you than me …” He closed his eyes. “I should have died with you.” His voice caught. “I wanted to die with you.”

He admitted it. “I’ve wanted to die ever since.”

 _And you’ve been trying for months now_ , Skip whispered, and Don began to weep. Not just for his friends, or for his brothers, but for all of them, all the men he’d met, all the lives now lost, all the families left bereft. For his father and Skip’s family and the girl he came here to meet. Until finally he wept for himself.

When at last he stopped and his eyes could weep no more, he picked himself up off the pebbly shore and looked once more upon the Niagara. It went on sweeping past, as short as it was swift, and as inexorable.

Shivering, Don got back in his car.


	7. Chapter 7

_New York_

Don made it back to his room before he got pneumonia. He slept the rest of the night like a new man.

In the morning he took the car and drove down from Tonawanda to the town of Kenmore. He wasn’t sure exactly what house he was looking for, and when he found it, she wasn’t there.

 _Fine_ , he thought, and it no longer troubled him. What was meant to be would be. Maybe someday he’d meet her at last, and they could talk about Skip.

He returned home, flying back this time, still not used to still being on a plane as it landed.

The next warm day, he returned to the ruins of the cabin on the Nehalem, in the remnants of the Burn, and camped there. He went to the river, took off his clothes, and swam, out into the current, and back to shore.

_New Jersey_

The lights of Lew’s car announced his return. “There’s your ride,” Blanche whispered in Dick’s ear.

“Come with us,” he asked her. “Leave this place. Stay in the city. Show me around.”

She laughed. “I’ll leave that to my brother. He knows all the best ways to get in a jam. But if you’re ever in my town, look me up. Chestnut Street. Russian Hill. The views are spectacular.”

But Dick never did get to San Francisco. One morning, many years later, after a party the previous night while she and Lew were visiting, Irene found Blanche dead of a gunshot wound. It was ruled a suicide.

_San Francisc_ o

The letter was on the room table, scribbled misspelled and hasty on the hotel stationery. David read it three times to begin with.

> _David,_
> 
> _By the time you read this I will be long gone. Please do not look for me for I don’t want to be found. I have things to do and plenty of stuff to sort out and I have to do it alone._
> 
> _I know you will feel like I betrayed you one more time. I am sorry. I am more sorry than I know how to say for everything between you and me. If there were some other world—_

The pen here turned into a scrawl.

It resumed:

> _You will be a great writer and write a great book about the war and all of us. If you mention me don’t make me into anything I am not. I was just a bum looking for trouble who ended up in an outfit of finer men than was ever made._
> 
> _Take care._
> 
> _Joe._

The first thing he did was call the front desk. “Hello? Yes, this is Room 1039. Do you know if my—” Friend. “Friend, is in the lobby?”

No. He went down himself, in pajamas and robe. The clerk hadn’t seen Joe. He went to the other clerk, who also had seen nothing.

It was the doorman—the night doorman, not the one they met first—who had a lead.

“Yeah, small guy, pointy nose, duffel bag, scruffy outfit? Got in a cab.”

“Which cab?”

He called. “Yes, hello, Mr. Price. We met yesterday. I was wondering if you could tell me who was working the stand at the St. Francis between the hours of one and three AM.”

He tracked down the cabbie. “Oh yeah, I remember him,” the driver said. “Skinny guy, snakes in his head. Took him to the Ferry Building. Said I could take him over the bridge anywhere he wanted, but he gave me a five and told me to keep it.”

The Ferry Building. Was he going home?

He went through the phone book for Oakland and the East Bay. He flipped to the L’s, ran his finger along the print until it was black, and found them, he hoped, in San Leandro, called. “May I please speak to Joseph Liebgott?”

“This is he.”

The voice was all wrong. David hazarded a guess. “No, Joseph junior?”

“You mean Sonny? What about him?”

“Is he there? Can I speak with him?”

“Mister, Sonny hasn’t lived here in years. As far as I know it in the Army he is. You try calling them.”

“Wait—” But they had hung up.

He stayed, longer, searching, waiting, hoping he’d turn up. Hoping he’d come back. In the end his parents sent a telegram, come home, we’re not sending you any more money. Come home, resume your life, it’s time to leave the past behind.

He gave in. But as he stood on the ferry and watched the golden city vanish once more into its cloak of fog, he promised, _I’ll find you again_.  
  


_Philadelphia_

Babe left the next day. Bill was already at work and Frances was out shopping. He didn’t think he needed to wait for them, so he left a thank-you note and headed out. He wouldn’t see them again for weeks.

The next time he saw Bill he found his old sergeant playing craps at 17th and McKean as always. “Jesus, Babe,” Bill complained, “thought you was a cop.”

They went and had a beer together. “So I was thinking,” said Bill.

“Really? You? You need an aspirin?”

“Shaddap. Anyway, what you said, last time we saw you—”

“About?”

“About telling the story,” Bill answered. “Our story. The company’s.”

Babe was blank. “I don’t remember that.”

“You did,” said Bill. “You was up, mooning and moaning, oh I don’t know what I’m gonna do, oh Bill what about your leg, oh noesy woesy me—“

“Hey, screw you.”

“Anyways. So I was thinking, first thing we do, is keep in touch.”

“We live in the same neighborhood.”

“And you ain’t seen me in weeks.” Bill jabbed at him. “But what I mean is, the guys. The company. We got to keep in touch. Keep an eye out. And one day, well, we can tell the story. The way it ought.”

Babe started to understand. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. Keep the guys together. Someday tell the story. Yeah. That’s a great idea, sarge.”

Bill slapped his good leg. “I told you stop calling me ‘sarge’.”

“All right, fine.” Babe took a drink, smacked his lips. “How’s about I call you … Nutsie?”

fin.

**Author's Note:**

> These homecomings took place at different times between 1945-1946.
> 
> Farrington Lake, Stanhope Nixon’s notorious getaway, is now the East Brunswick NJ Elks Lodge, # 2370. You can see the portrait of Stanhope in yachting gear on its Yelp page.
> 
> The Oak Room at the St. Francis Hotel being a gay pick-up scene is from WIDE OPEN TOWN by Nan Boyd.
> 
> For more about Richard Winters’s experiences with the Nixons and Farrington (Farenton) Lake, see Larry Alexander’s Winters biography BIGGEST BROTHER. The true stories of Joseph Liebgott and Skip Muck can be found in Marcus Brotherton’s A COMPANY OF HEROES. Don Malarkey’s memoir EASY COMPANY SOLDIER with Bob Welch, and Bill Guarnere and Babe Heffron’s joint memoir BROTHERS IN BATTLE, BEST OF FRIENDS as told to Robyn Post, are must-reads.


End file.
